Vanessa Wynder Quainoo

Appointed as Chief Intercultural Engagement Officer effective July 1, 2022, Dr. Vanessa Wynder Quainoo reports to both the President and the Provost and serves as a member of the Senior Administrative Cabinet. Her expertise, teaching, and personal convictions align with this critical position in exciting ways as Wheaton pursues a biblical vision of diversity across campus, providing leadership for defining and meeting campus-wide diversity and inclusion goals and plays a central role in fostering and sustaining a vision for biblical diversity. Dr. Quainoo’s work includes collaborating with faculty, staff, and students to foster and sustain a compelling vision for biblical diversity and embrace the challenge of deepening ethnic diversity, promoting racial unity, and advancing intercultural understanding. She promotes and develops inclusive pedagogy and curriculum that support culturally responsive classrooms with Christian faith integration grounded in a practical, biblical understanding of race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic class in the kingdom of God.

Dr. Quianoo holds the faculty rank of Associate Professor of Communication.

Dr. Quainoo’s expertise includes social rhetoric and race discourse. In addition to earning a Bachelor’s in Speech Communication from Wheaton College, she holds a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and a Master’s in Oral Performance from Western Illinois University. More recently, she served on the College’s Board of Visitors from 2014 to 2018.